These have just been my thoughts the last couple of days and my blog may not reflect these things but I'm making some resolutions for the new year and one is to better understand about sacrifice especially those times when I pat myself on the back for what I thought was a sacrifice. I think I'm starting to get it. I want to be more humble and much more grateful for those things the Lord has given me.
On December 30th we had another wheelchair distribution at the Army Hospital. We met with generals, their wives, military personnel and wheelchair recipients. We then a lunch in the officers club and had a great discussion concerning our upcoming HBB project.
We left a couple of wheelchairs to patients in this ICU. Some of these people have had wheelchairs, but they've been borrowed wheelchairs from the hospital, now they have their own.
This is one of the generals and his family. He was wounded about 10 years ago during the Maoists insurgency
After we were done I had to hurry home, I was having a luncheon for my Visiting Teaching Sisters, not all were able to attend so we invited the hungry boys to come and help us finish up our meal.
On Monday we went to the Police Hospital to talk with Dr. Tapa, who asked if he could be our hospital monitor for HBB. We were thrilled, such a nice man, and then we had to go shopping for a birthday present for Rajasee, her birthday was on the 1st.
Just your typical 6 year old birthday girl
Another one of those cakes that they soak in water, I guess that's what you'd call a "moist cake"
It was such a nice day, the party was held outside
This is Sister Topham, Sunila had brought out a can of canned snow and sprayed it just has Sister Topham walked by, she got a mouth full.
We had a huge meal, I loved the marinated peanuts on these shrimp tasting puffed chip like things. I'm sure I'll never find those at home but I am going to get the recipe for the peanuts, and I don't even like peanuts.
As soon as we left the birthday party some of the branch members were having a New Years Day Party that we were invited to. A previous member of the branch had sent some money to one of the members and told them to have a party and dinner for a select few of the members, and she gave them a list of who was to be invited along with the missionary couples (I felt bad that not everyone was invited). We'd just finished a big meal at the birthday party and were now having to eat another big meal, I don't think I'm going to be losing weight any time soon.
Here are pictures of the party.
Happy New Year on the stage at the restaurant written in ribbon
Me, Meena, Sarita and Carol
The little boy on the left is Baudel, I tease him and call him Fanta because Nepali's love their orange Fanta and I told him I can remember his name when I think of a Fanta bottle
These kids were having a ball showing off their dance moves for everyone
This is Baudel again. He was amazing. I have this all on video
This is the Gurung family in their Gurung Caste attire, Utpati, Santa with her father and sister
The next day was working at home in our warm office. We have a propane heater in here and it is the only warm room in the house. I look forward to staying at home days in the winter but I'm sure it won't be quite so nice when it gets hot. They tell us it should start warming up in the middle of February and then get hot in April through October.
On Thursday, we have two dinner meetings. One was supposed to be on Friday but the important guests couldn't make it so we had one dinner at 4:30 and the other at 7:00. We went to two different Chinese restaurants. One was a favorite restaurant of one of the guests the other was a favorite of another.
I can't take this eating like this for much longer. We had about an hour in between the two dinners so Rakesh took us to a real mall, called the World Trade Center.
I was shocked to see this sort of modern mall. It was only half occupied and only a handful of shoppers. It was very cold inside but luckily they had electricity when we walked through.
Friday morning we had our missionary breakfast meeting. Real tenderloin is served at the Radisson on Fridays and Sundays and Greg wanted real beef. We ate, had a short meeting and Kent and I were off running to the Porapakar Maternity Hospital where we are delivering a lot of printed training materials for their preliminary training before the doctors from Utah get here on the 17th.
Saturday, our walk home from church was filled with more new sights. I thought about the sun and how important that is to the people in Nepal as I snapped pictures along the way.
I took this picture in the RS room at church, it was freezing inside, nice outside, I even had to wear gloves to keep my hands warm.
I wish I could remember this wonderful man's name. He is the husband of one of the members. As we walk to and from church each Saturday he comes out and gives Kent and I both great big hugs. This is his little tailor shop. He is deaf and does not speak but his smile tells his story. He is one of the best parts of our walk to Church.
This is his father who is also a tailor. He has moved his sewing machine out in the sun so he could work.
This woman is doing her wash out in front of her little shutter shop, where the sun is shining
This is her daughter who has just washed her hair in the cold, cold tap and is now combing and drying it in the warm sunshine.
The only warm place to take a nap
Even the dogs find a spot in the sun
Sunday was the first pretraining day of HBB at the Porapakar Hospital. Ravi asked us to come, we're not sure why because this doesn't really have much to do with us until the doctors are here next week. He said they would want to see us. So we went.
Rajena, training HBB to the nurses
Kent with Dr. Sharma, also one of the trainers
This is Ravi, he's another one of my favorite people, he has such a fun personality. He also always has a smile. When we first arrived in Nepal he was trying to teach us how to say the different Nepali food items we were eating, we weren't so good then but now we can say lots of Nepali words
A few days ago we received an email from India informing us that the Church's Media Couple would be coming to see the training going on in Nepal. We went to inform the Director of the Hospital, to make her aware and also to make sure it was okay with her. We went to her office but she wasn't there so they had Kent call her on their special locked up telephone.
Monday we spent the day working at home, making last minute arrangements for the doctors coming next week and then we had our monthly FHE skyping with India. We had the Rempps over before our FHE for dinner and then had the skype call, in the dark, of course!
Tuesday, We took a field trip to the goat market. Greg was hoping to see them slaughter a goat, but it didn't happen on this day, but we enjoyed looking at the goats.
This is the yucky, dirty, Bagmati River that we passed on the way to the Goat Market
Kent liked playing with the children kids more than the goat kids.
We then walked through this "tarp mall". I'm not sure how long it was but it went on and on forever. As Kent and I got almost to the end we got a call from Rakesh saying he needed us all to go to the immigration office and take care of some business with our visas. Kent and I had to run all the way back to the Rakesh's waiting car. So much for doing any shopping this day.
We spent the next 3 hours at the immigration office for nothing. We're still waiting for our new visas.
Later that night we had made plans to have dinner with the Rempps and Tophams at one of our favorite places to eat. We also had a skype meeting with the President of NEPAS (equivalent to the President of the American Pediatric Society) Dr. Tapa from the Army Hospital and Dr. Rita from the OM Hospital and Dr. Clark from Salt Lake.. They all wanted to meet Dr. Clark before he came for the training. They had some questions and some good input for us. This was at our home, in our little office and of course the power went off just at the time the meeting started. I had planned on having some light refreshments for this meeting until the day before when Rakesh informed me that they all would be coming from their hospitals and would be hungry so I should feed them dinner. What to do???? We had tried for some time to schedule dinner with the Tophams so I hated cancelling. so it was another 2 dinner night. I had to think of something easy and tasty. I asked Rukmina to make razma, which is beans and rice and is very tasty. I knew I'd be safe with Nepali food. We went to KFC and got a bucket of chicken, I made breadsticks and gingerbread, banana bread and cookies and we made sure we had plenty of candles. I should have taken pictures, but the meeting was a great success, our computer worked, they liked the food and it's over. Whew!
Dinner with Tophams at Nina's
They are amazing in that they come here, work here and live here for 6 months of every year. They had come trekking in 2000 and then decided they wanted to serve a mission here. They came for 2 years, went home and the couple that replaced them were here 6 months when one of them became very sick and had to go home. The mission office called and asked if they would come back, and they did and they've kept coming back. He works in several hospitals, training the staff how to use and maintain their equipment. The hospitals are given all this free equipment and then they don't know how to use it correctly or to maintain it. He says it's quite a job and most still can't figure it out. He has some very interesting stories to tell, that's why I hope I never have to go to the hospital here. One of our doctors is going to train the neonatal unit on how to use a CPAP machine that has been sitting in the neonatal corner because they don't know how to use it. I wonder how many babies could have been saved had they known how to use the machine.
Wednesday, we went to Bhaktapor again. Rempps hadn't been there yet so we decided to go out and see Suman, Rosaina and the new baby again.
I love this old little city, not so many motorcycles, taxis, or dust
Out in the sun, again!
These boys had been playing some kind of a card game with homemade paper cards
More washing out in the sun
This bare bottomed little boy is helping his mother with the wash.
Isn't he cute?
Kent with Suman walking the streets of Bhaktapor
Suman's cute little bundled up neice
Kent holding Sumans new son, he walked around the streets carrying him and everyone would come up and wanted to know why this white face had this little Nepali baby. Kent kept telling them he was the hajourbuba (grandfather). Most would laugh the others wanted to know where his mother was. It was fun. I think I told you that some believe that if they put that black eyeliner on the baby it keeps away the evil spirits, others say it helps makes the babies eyes bigger and the bigger the eyes are, the more beautiful Nepali they are, at least that's what they think.
Sites of Bhaktapor
There is a story that belongs with each picture
This was Suman's sister-in-law
She is making beautiful carved wood pieces.
I will close with two funny Nepali pictures
This truck's axle is down to the ground, they had an assembly line unloading it. This is also the street where we have to navigate every day. Don't anyone tell me I haven't been trekking in Nepal.
On the right side of this tuk tuk is a man riding on the back of a motorcycle. He has a glass table on his head. His head is in the middle of two pieces of glass. I can hardly believe someone would actually ride like this. These streets are so crazy and so are some of the people!!!!
Today we spent getting lots of emails sent off, getting ready for HBB training next week, finding a venue for our important dinner meeting with important doctors, ministry people, finally locating digital timers for the training, writing invitations for the dinner meeting and finalizing a lot of last minute things. We've worked hard and it feels good to finally feel we're accomplishing some things we were sent here to do.
"Salt it good" and I want to be the salt that seasons the sacrifice. I want what I do here in Nepal to have meaning and be of value to help those who really sacrifice, to make a difference in someone's life. I want to feel good about what we're doing in Nepal and to let people see that there is something different about me because I have the spirit of Christ in my life and because of His sacrifice, there is hope, there is joy and a purpose to our lives. I want to have salt in myself and have peace with others.
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